Posted
by
Cliff
on Saturday April 01, 2006 @12:45AM
from the whizzz-vroom dept.

Datagod asks: "Has anyone ever calculated the temperature you would need to be able to slice through steel like it was thin air? How hot would a light saber really need to be? Also, I am assuming that at least some of the metal would be vaporized and the expanding gas would fling bits of molten metal at the saber wielder. Wouldn't your average Jedi be horribly scarred from all this."

Not necessarily, Padawan. If a Jedi cuts through a door/bulkhead/vehicle with a light saber s/he could avoid getting splashed with melted metal by applying a subtle Force push along with the slicing motion of the saber. To Saber 101 class you should return, youngling.;)

The light saber would need to be 6241 F to cut through metal. At that temperature, the metal would be separated into sub-atomic particles called 'fooltrons'. As I'm sure you are aware, fooltrons are far to small to cause damage to the human body.

could you toast marshmallows with a light sabre. On the one hand, there's plenty of energy, on the other hand the energy doesn't seem to go very far from the blade. I'm sure if you just touch the blade to the marshmallow it'll just vaporize though. Perhaps a wise Jedi, skilled in the force, could do this. Or maybe force lightnight. I guess you could heat a rock with a sabre and then toast with that, but it's just not the same.

Mace Wendu: I don't want no muthafrakking metal bita coming at my muthafrakking eyes! I will not be some blind-assStevie Wonder jedi....and this the JEDI adopted OSHA standards.

It is a time of great eye protection in the republic.

Eyeprotection worn by leading scientists without the force powers to deflect metal bits from their eyes.

They found the lightsaber:Was developed from an ancient bread-slicer / toaster.Contains 1.21 gigawats of power between recharge of it's flux capacitors.Ranges from 350F to 50000F (battery life may suffer from extended operation, and overheating may occur at high temperatures.Still makes a tasty grilled cheese sandwich in a pinch.It was a dark time in the Republic.Mainly because light sabers are really, really bright at high temperatures.So bright as to be blinding.Hence the recall.........*sigh* and so the 100th episode of the Star Wars series aired... in gravity distorting 3-D.1138 left to go.

About as hot as me on a Saturday night when I've got my disco suit on and I'm all ready for a hot time with the chicks on the dance floor with the Bee Gees in the background as I show her my John Travolta moves and take her back to make out on my watebed with soft light from the lava lamp afterwards.

"Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?" No, he could always eat the burrito, no matter how hot. He would just suffer while eating it. Horribly. For all our sakes. (And of course, since a Jewish man prepared the burrito, we Christians would hold the Jewish people guilty of this for the rest of time, or at least for a millenium or two...)

I don't think the light is part of the process at all. It's a red, green, or blue (or sometimes purple) herring. The light is probably added by whatever OSHA dealy they had a long time ago to show where the dangerous part is...

But the real question is: where did lucas get a telescope powerful enough to record all of this?

Light sabers are pretty advanced pieces of technology. Let me try to explain how they work in basic terms.

First off, you need to imagine a sort of 'shield' around the blade. It is this shield that actually forms the blade in to a specific shape and length. It uses micro-miniature deflector technology. It's all deflector technology these days. If you can picture a sort of transparent hollow tube you are on the right track. In fact, if a Jedi needs a non-lethal billy club he/she can simply switch off the fusion generators and start whacking you with the deflector shield. It won't cut your arms off, but it'll smart a bit. Now, last time I checked, if you've gone to the trouble to piss off a Jedi chances are he ain't gonna take the time to just beat you over the head with a deflector shield. He's just gonna slice you in two. So keep that in mind.

Also, it's these deflectors that Jedi use to do that cool hand trick maneuver. They want you to think it's their hand throwing stuff across the room. Ever wonder what 'the force' is. It's just a case of misdirection: "HEY! LOOK AT MY HAND!" (As the Jedi switches his deflector on his saber to maximum using his left hand, down by his side.)

Now that you have this sort of hollow tube shield deflector thing, fusion materials are inserted in to the tube. Then 'blaster' technology is used to ignite the materials and sustain a reaction. Blaster technology is pretty deep, and I don't have time to go in to it. Now, as you can imagine, it takes quite a bit of energy to keep such a reaction going. That's why you hear that cool 'whummm' sound as you move it around. You're holding a few megawatts of energy in your hands. It's also why you hear that crackle when you whack two of them together. Same tech behind the frekin' lightning bolt shooting out of the hands trick.

The question was raised, why doesn't the superheated component of the saber just burn the crap out of the user? Well - deflectors of course. The deflectors contain the radiated heat energy to within a few inches of the blade. In fact, most sabers have a feature to adjust how much energy is radiated. This is handy if you ever find yourself stranded on an ice world. You just pop the thing in the snow, turn up the radiated heat, and you have a nice bonfire.

You might be wondering, but Luke almost froze to death and he had a saber - what gives? Well - let's just say his saber was more of a 'hack.' You see, Jedi in the past have been burnt badly when Sith lords have used the 'dark side' to tweak the controls on their sabers turning up the radiated heat. You think Yoda was born looking that way?? No, saber radiated heat accident. Anikin really liked screwing with young Jedi by turning up the radiated heat when they weren't looking. Well, anyhow, one of Luke's "improvements" to his saber was to remove this feature. Oops.;)

So there you have it. Be sure to keep your eyes open for my O'Reilly book coming out soon: Light Sabers in a Nutshell.

In order to make a semi-solid beam of energy which could interact with both matter and energy would require containing a quasar and quantum singularity inside the hilt. The gravitational field would pull all the quasar's expelled plasma back moments after the quasar releases them. The speed of the returning plasma would form a chainsaw effect allowing it to cut through the matter with ease, while when being stopped by an opposing beam. A modulated gravity field would bounce allow for the reflection of energy beams.

> All that exists is in the mind of God. To be in the> mind of God is to exist. God is omniscient, therefore> everything that's in a human mind is in the mind of God.> Therefore Narnia, Barsoom, and Middle-Earth exist, and> George Lucas committed genocide when he blew up Alderaan.

If that's true then holy god there are a bunch of Angelina Jolie, Sandra Bullock, Rose McGowan, and Alicia Witt clones floating around Yahweh-space with extremely sore pussies.

Be careful! The nanites might only attack foes, but even inert they would still be enough to (for example) knock a friend off of a sail barge.

My personal theory about light sabers is that they're really just extendable swords, with lights added to let people know where the bad parts are. You know, like how smell gets added to gasoline, or the title "prequal" gets added to some of Lucas's movies.